Sway
by CrackedMetal
Summary: Sherlock doesn't leave the reception and Mary wants the best friends to have a moment to talk… So she suggests a dance. Johnlock with a side of John/Mary. Sort of song fic. based on "Sway" by Michael Buble.


**A/N So I hardly ever do song-fics but this popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone and I couldn't NOT write it. So here you go, some Johnlock for you. My first attempt at a Sherlock fan fiction so please be kind and review to let me know how I did. Please enjoy.**

**Summary: Sherlock doesn't leave the reception and Mary wants the best friends to have a moment to talk… So she suggests a dance. Sort of song fic. Johnlock.**

* * *

**Sway**

_**Oh what a night.**_

As the first song of the official celebration ended the dancing ceased momentarily before picking straight back up once more as a new song began, just as cheerful and energetic as the last.

_**If you see a faded sign at the side of the road that says "15 miles to the Love Shack".**_

John and Mary giggled together, choosing for now to put the latest deduction of the resident genius detective to the backs of their minds and enjoy their first night as a married couple. John grabbed Mary's hands and they spent the next three minutes twirling and dipping and spinning each other around the dance floor, careless of the bodies that surrounded them. When the next song began it was much calmer and they regained their formal dancing posture, relaxing into each other's arms.

John closed his eyes in bliss for a moment, soaking in the night; having his wife right there beside him and knowing his best friend was merely steps' away, probably having fun further humiliating Greg in one way or another or with Janine, who he seemed to have got along with quite famously… As much as Sherlock Holmes could anyhow.

It was still with a feeling of incredible ambiguity and hope that these thoughts came to him, so unnatural and fanciful they felt after believing Sherlock dead for those long years. It was with these musings of those lonely months that he found his eyes opening and grazing across the dance floor, searching for the gaze of the man that had been the most important being in his life for oh, so long.

It took only a moment for him to find the piercing blue as they stared straight at him, lips pressed into a thin line and face blank of all the emotion he had shown earlier. Though the lack of feeling hurt just slightly, John was honestly surprised to find him there at all, half having expected the man to have snuck off during the first dance, into the night with his eyes downcast and his collar turned up. As this thought flitted through him he saw a tiny twitch of Sherlock's lips as he obviously saw the unwitting flash of relief and gratitude in John's eyes when he saw him there, standing tall and stiff by the edge of the dance floor, so close to the party and yet so completely isolated that it made John's heart hurt.

He swallowed when his friend broke the gaze at that, as if he had been reading his exact thoughts and the truth behind them hurt far too much to confront.

It occurred to John then that though it felt like the gaze had lasted a life time it had in fact only been barely ten seconds and that his wife was still in his arms, though their feet barely moved over the ground and their bodies were only gently swaying back and forth, her face tilted up to search his expression as his attention was finally brought back to her.

He cleared his throat and smiled down at her, fully prepared to pretend nothing had occurred and continue in their celebration. Mary chuckled slightly under her breath and smirked up at him.

"You miss him don't you?" She spoke quietly but was so sure in her words that they were barely a question.

He frowned in a confused manner. "Miss him? How could I do that? He's right over there… And we spoke not ten minutes ago."

She rolled her eyes and lifted the hand off his shoulder to lightly, but pointedly, smack him were it had been lying.

"Oi!," he exclaimed, of course not having been hurt but wanting to preserve the comical edge to night that, underneath the joking words and songs, seemed to be on a sharp precipice and about to take a running leap into oblivion. "That's spousal abuse I'll have you know."

She laughed once again but her face quickly became serious, though still soft and smiling. "John, don't pretend with me. This day was never going to just be about you and me. You know as well as I that the only reason he's still here is to keep you happy. So go then." She pulled back from his arms slightly and gave him a small shove. "Go be Mister Holmes and Doctor Watson. He is after all, lost without his blogger."

Leaving him with a smile on his face and laughter in his eyes she threw a last wink his way before turning and running to where her bridesmaids had collected into a group to dance the Nutbush, hiking up her dress and clicking her heels.

John turned away from the slightly ridiculous sight and once again met the eyes of his best friend, though this time breaking the gaze immediately and walking to him while looking about the room, trying to be as casual as possible and not look as though this had been anyone's idea but his own.

Of course he needn't have bothered.

"So Mary told you to come speak with me did she?" As soon as he was within audible distance the baritone of Sherlock's voice washed over him and caused a deep rumbling laugh to form within his chest.

"Maybe." John smiled up at him. "Though I don't think it took a genius to figure out there is more than one person I need to spend time with tonight."

They were both silent then, standing side by side and watching the others dancing jovially. These silences were seemingly becoming more and more frequent between them, continually following rather deep bouts of sentiment that, before the detectives "death", had been uncommon at best and completely unheard of at worst.

The silence seemed to be enough for them, simply watching, content with the others presence as if the solid physical closeness would ensure the continuation of their friendship though this marriage that everyone was so determined to tell them would "change everything". It wasn't until two songs later, when they had shuffled just slightly so that the sleeves of their suits began to brush that Sherlock finally spoke once more, neither of them moving to put any distance between them.

"It seems as though Janine is rather happy with her bore of a man. If one can put up with those frankly appalling dance techniques than she must have found her… special someone."

John rolled his eyes at the distain that practically dripped from those words.

"Now now Sherlock, not all of us have been practicing by themselves in their apartments every night they didn't have a case for the past _four years." _John's words grew more pointed through his sentence, a teasing light to them as he choose to ignore the fact that he had no clue whatsoever as to whether or not the detective had had the time or opportunity to dance at all through his absence from London. He glanced to his left and saw Sherlock's mouth just slightly agape.

"What you thought I hadn't noticed? Please Sherlock, if you don't realise when I leave the apartment, what makes you think you've noticed every time I've entered it?"

The taller man's mouth snapped shut at this and a rather pleased smile bloomed across his face, though one that was only half sincere. "Well done John. Though I'll have you know that dancing is a perfectly respectable form of exercise and agility that has caused great improvement in my dexterity, speed and-"

John stepped in front of him and cut him off with some force behind his words, looking into his eyes once more. "Sherlock, I never said there was anything wrong with it. You don't need to explain yourself to me. After all, without your lessons I would have been lost tonight."

Whatever that was false in his last smile faded from Sherlock's face and all that was left was a genuine expression of awe and thanks, one John was only recently beginning to realise was directed at him quite often, when never had he seen the detective grace anyone else with such a look.

In what seemed like the distance, the song changed once more, lilting with a Jazzy rhythm through the air. It was only a split second after it had begun that John saw the look in Sherlock's eyes change as they flicked to look over his shoulder, hardening not being the right word, though they came to lack something they had only a moment ago. It was then that a small hand slid into his and squeezed.

"Brilliant! Love this song!" Mary beamed next to him, looking between Sherlock and him with something akin to pride on her face.

John took in a breath, unknowing as to where the sudden unsettled sensation inside him came from but feeling the need to gather himself before he turned to face his wife.

"Well then, would you like to dance?"

The look on her face became mischievous and it became glaringly obvious she was not finished in her meddling. "No dear, of course not. Wouldn't dream of interrupting you boys while you're having a moment… Just thought you two might want to show off all that practice you were bragging to me about earlier."

John gaped and Sherlock's eyebrows creased in his own form of confusion, an expression rarely witnessed on such a man's face. Mary giggled and stepped forward so that she was beside Sherlock instead of her husband, turning back towards John and placing a hand on Sherlock's back, pushing just enough to make him step forward into John's personal space, chests only inches away from each other.

The smile still stuck on Mary's face suggested she had perhaps no idea of the sudden change of atmosphere that suddenly came upon the two men. Sherlock's chest had ceased to move entirely and the fact that John was close enough to realise such a fact, as well the other man's hand curling into a fist and then unravelling by his side, was enough of a testament to their closeness as John reflexively swallowed and shifted his feet just slightly, not daring to move further away, nor closer.

_**When marimba rhythms start to play  
Dance with me, make me sway**_

The lyrics crooned beyond them, romantic and intimate, and John had to stop himself raising his posture into the dancing stance and pulling himself closer to Sherlock purely out of the habit they had established during their practice sessions before the wedding.

Neither of them was as oblivious as others seemed to think. People often stated how strange their friendship was compared to "normal" relationship standards, as if they hadn't already considered this within their own minds.

Quite the contrary in fact; they knew it was more than just the joke those at Scotland Yard made it out to be. Both the doctor and the detective were quite aware that something lurked beneath the surface of their friendship, something that had come very close to the surface only a few times in their time together, though had never broken the barriers they had erected around themselves and their interactions. Ironically enough it had been that same day those barriers had come the closest to crashing down around them.

Sherlock knew the John would die for him.

John knew that Sherlock lived for him.

They were extremely aware that their friendship extended past the simple enjoyment of the others presence; more that they literally _needed _each other to survive.

Mary had been the only one to fully witness this as fact though. John had refused to see anyone for such a long time after his death, throwing himself into work at the clinic. Long before they were together, Mary had seen the damage caused by Sherlock's absence and that was why, when she threw them together just so, he knew that she knew, to some extent at least. Of course their marriage would prevail and of course he loved her, but there would forever be more than one person in his heart. Sherlock Holmes was tattooed there in something much more permanent than ink ever could be.

It was for this reason John found himself completely startled and struggling to understand why she would encourage this, in front of every single person they were close to and at their wedding reception. He glanced to her, fully aware that Sherlock had not looked up from the ground as his brain had screamed through all those details in a second, avoiding the mockery or rejection he might face if he raised his eyes.

There was laughter somewhere to their left as footsteps echoed closer to them, though John didn't move his gaze, flickering from Mary's soft, reassuring smile and Sherlock's downturned and heartbreakingly conflicted features.

_**Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore,  
Hold me close, sway me more**_**.**

"Come on then boys!" A rambunctious voice half-shouted, easily recognised as Lestrade with a glass of champagne in his hand. Molly stood quietly at his side as Tom trailed behind, a politely amused look on his face. "Show us how it's done Sherlock."

The best man's head finally lifted chin defiantly tilted and jaw clenched as he met John's scrutiny, sharply jerking his head once in a nod and holding out his arms in an invitation for John to step into his arms.

_**Like a flower bending in the breeze,  
Bend with me, sway with ease.**_

John swallowed thickly, wringing his hands at his side before stretching them out and finally stepping back and lifting his arms, urging Sherlock to step forward and onto the dance floor he now occupied.

Lestrade, Molly and Mary all cheered enthusiastically, jokingly as Sherlock stepped forward and grasped John's hand, the other going to slip around John's waist. They had practiced with both leading alternately and Sherlock knew how terrified John was in that moment, tiny beads of sweat gathering on his forehead as they made their first steps, the others still making loud comments jovially. He knew in this instance, it would be his responsibility to guide John through.

_**When we dance you have a way with me,  
Stay with me, sway with me.**_

Sherlock lead him about the dance floor, starting with small steps as they attempted to find some sort of rhythm within their awkward situation. His hands struggled to keep from clenching into the fabric of John's suit to pull him closer, the shorter man still shooting self-conscious looks all around, uncomfortable and stumbling. Instead he squeezed the hand he held tightly on the other side, immediately drawing John's attention back to him. His eyes softened and he allowed a small smile to grace his face, meant to be seen only by his companion.

"Forget about them." While the words were sweet and usually would be full of sentiment, they exited Sherlock's mouth as an order, quiet but demanding obedience. "We've done this plenty of times John, no reason for this to be any different." He shot off another small smile, this one more strained because they both knew he was lying.

Though he saw straight through Sherlock's words, John felt instantly more at ease, the tone and command in Sherlock's manner so familiar and typical of his best friend that he couldn't help but ease just a tiny bit closer in his hold and take larger, more graceful steps.

_**Other dancers may be on the floor,  
Dear, but my eyes will see only you,**__  
__**Only you have that magic technique,  
When we sway I go weak.**_

It quickly became apparent to anyone who looked upon the couple that the routine came with practiced ease, steps synching and becoming swift and agile.

Sherlock's eyes sparkled in satisfaction when John's dancing immediately improved upon his words. As the groom had yet to take his eyes off Sherlock he noticed immediately.

"Shut up, you berk. You don't have to look so damn proud of yourself," though he couldn't repress a small huff of laughter of his own as he mumbled the words under his breath.

As they both became comfortable and the dance became second nature, John began listening to the song they were dancing to and immediately his face began to flush. He hadn't realised quite how romantic and intimate it was when they had begun. Yet it was shockingly appropriate, he thought as he looked up at the detectives face once more._**I can hear the sounds of violins,  
Long before it begins.  
Make me thrill as only you know how,  
Sway me smooth, sway me now.**_The more he took notice of the lyrics the more he felt the need to search and memorise every inch of that pale, sharp face; one he knew better than any other already and yet, not nearly well enough. Just as these thoughts started to overwhelm him Sherlock choose to turn his gaze back down and meet him eye to eye. The sparks of humour and comfort that resided there only moments ago had vanished, leaving behind a focussed intensity that let John know he was not the only one who had realised the significance of the song they moved together to.

_**Other dancers may be on the floor,  
Dear, but my eyes will see only you,  
Only you have that magic technique,  
When we sway I go weak.**_

They turned on the dance floor and paused with the music, breaths heavy between them, making them realise just how close they had come to stand when they could feel the expelled puffs of air on cheeks and necks. They were lost now, completely unable to move away, nor move closer as in the very backs of their minds they were still aware of the faces watching them as they began moving once again.

The jokes and laughing had stopped now. Mary watched on as the boys got lost in each other and she couldn't help but smile. Perhaps she _should _be jealous or angry or devastated that she had been proven right about the feelings she suspected they held for each other, but all she could feel inside was contentment and adoration. The look on John's face was one she had never seen while Sherlock had been dead but had been increasing in frequency whenever they were all at Baker Street together. That along with the devotion and shining love in Sherlock's eyes made it impossible to be angry with either of them. This is how it should be. How it _would _be. She was determined that this is what was going to work for them, no matter what anyone else said. She would never own all of John's heart, and if she knew that and it didn't change anything, why should it make a difference to anyone else? She loved John and she knew John loved her. It just so happened that Sherlock was the love of John's life and it was something she had come to terms with long ago, before even John had realised. She lay a hand on her stomach and thought of how their baby would be to have three people who would love it unconditionally and forever, because it was one more thing she knew would be all three of theirs.

For all the times Lestrade was called a terrible detective, he wasn't completely blind. The longer he watched the two men dance the more he wondered how he had never seen it before. His laughter dulled and stopped completely, eyes softening as they took in the frankly moving sight before him. He looked over at Mary, who stood with her hands clasped in front of her lips, partially hiding a smile that he didn't expect to still reside of her face. Her eyes still shone with love, eyes crinkling in happiness. He couldn't help but also smile at the sight.

Molly simply surveyed, not shocked or surprised or jealous as some might assume. She grabbed Tom's hand and lay her head on his shoulder, watching something unfold that she had been waiting years for. He was finally happy, that brilliant man.

I can hear the sounds of violins,  
Long before it begins,  
Make me thrill as only you know how,  
Sway me smooth, sway me now.

As they moved John's hand couldn't help but slide slightly, coming from the edge of Sherlock's shoulder to rest close to the curve of his neck, fingertips brushing the other man's skin for a second. A shiver ran through Sherlock's body and his hand clenched at John's waist, forcing the doctor to step even closer, their chests now only breaths apart.

The closer they became the stronger the urge to lean his head against Sherlock's suit covered chest was. John's breath became more and more unsteady, knees shaking and mouth becoming dry as Sherlock tilted his head down, breath brushing over the shell of his ear and curls falling to cover his best man's face from others.

When marimba rhythms start to play  
Dance with me, make me sway  
Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore  
Hold me close, sway me more

Their suits brushed against each other now and John's eyes had slipped closed. He wanted to breathe in everything about that moment, the feel of Sherlock's arms secure around him, the scent of his detective that seemed to sink into his very skin and make him dizzy.

Sherlock kept his hold on John firm, knowing the man was beginning to find it difficult to stand and continue to move. The data exploded in Sherlock's mind and he lost the rhythm of the music, wanting to make sure every tiny detail of John was catalogued and saved preciously within his mind palace. The cologne he was wearing; new, fresh and used more liberally on his right side than his left, making Sherlock bend his head to John's right to soak in the scent. The fabric of the suit in his hand; soft but still stiff with the ironing it had been given. It would be left with wrinkles that would that wouldn't fade until washed because of Sherlock's tight grip, as well as the seam being frayed in that spot, a constant reminder of how desperate Sherlock had been for him in that moment. The feel of John's breath over his cheek, warm and unsteady with far too much air being taken in, indicating John's attempt to control his bodily reactions to them being so close... and failing.

The list went on and on and every single deduction he made would never be forgotten or deleted.

Like a flower bending in the breeze,  
Bend with me, sway with ease.  
When we dance you have a way with me,  
Stay with me, sway with me.

The song would end soon and they both knew it. Their steps slowed and became smaller, till they were doing barely more than swaying back and forth, heads bent and turned towards each other, arms stiff with tension and the anticipation of how hard it would be to let go of each other.

_**When marimbas start to play,  
Hold me close, make me sway.**_

Their footsteps finally stopped and Sherlock was the one to pull back. Gazes reconnected and equal amounts of need and want and desire was passed between them, before Sherlock blinked and softly let go of John's hand and dropped from his waist. His eyes fell to the floor and after a moment and a breath he stepped forward, brushing shoulders with John as he walked past and started towards the door of the hall without another glance, grabbing and swinging on his coat without breaking step or looking back.

_**Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore  
Hold me close, sway me more**_

As Sherlock marched away from the dance floor towards the door that led to the garden John knew he wouldn't come back and not just tonight, no. He felt he would not see Sherlock for a long time if he didn't do something. He faltered in his steps, not knowing which direction to go in. His wife was still standing and watching, he had no idea what she was expecting to happen.

He met her eyes, heart pleading with her to allow him to do what he felt was necessary. As soon as he saw her, he knew she understood just as she always did. He loved her just as much as ever but there was someone who needed him and his love, desperately. This had gone unresolved for far too long and this was his last chance.

With one tiny nod to each other it was decided. They would navigate their own way through this unique relationship, it was time to start living the life they wanted.

John turned without any more hesitance and followed his soul mate out the door.

Mary watched his way, still able to see the back of Sherlock as he walked down the path towards the road. For the first time since the dance had begun Mary moved, walking to the door and grabbing the handle, looking out into the night at the two men who would be irrevocable and irreplaceable parts of her life now.

When John reached him he grabbed Sherlock's wrist and turned the detective to back towards him, stepping close. Mary saw his mouth move, saw Sherlock pause and mouth drop open slightly, obviously at a loss of what to say in return, though his eyes shone even in the darkness. When John grabbed his coat collar and raised onto his toes Mary pulled the door closed and turned back to her reception, smile and laughter genuine as she talked with her friends and family. The image of Sherlock's lips curling up in secret smile as John met him in their first kiss would be burned into her mind and lingered long after they re-joined the party, John with a grin that stuck the rest of the night when Sherlock didn't leave his side again.

_Probably never will. _Mary thought as she grinned back at them both, fondness and happiness taking her over as she viewed her new family.

_**Like a flower bending in the breeze,  
Bend with me, sway with ease,  
When we dance you have a way with me,  
Stay with me, sway with me.**_

**A/N Thanks for reading. Please review with your opinions because I honestly have no idea how good/bad this -betaed, please make me aware of any really noticeable errors :)  
**


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